


The Murder of Richard Grayson

by Sprintjump



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Murder, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-05-08 10:17:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14692134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sprintjump/pseuds/Sprintjump
Summary: August 18th, 2016. It was nearly two months after the Antartic incident. It had been nearly two months after an invasion had been stopped. It had been two months since the Justice League was back on Earth. That was the day Richard Grayson disappeared.January 2nd, 2038. More than three dozen bodies are found buried in a protected beach outside Gotham City. Richard Grayson is one of them.There are big questions looming on everyone's minds. Who killed Richard Grayson? Why?





	1. The Death Notice

**Author's Note:**

> It eventually gets more involved with the Young Justice Universe. Gotta wait for it.
> 
> Enjoy.

January 6th, 2038

* * *

 

“Commissioner Sawyer. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Bruce Wayne stood up from his desk and leaned on his cane as one of the receptionists from downstairs guided the Police Commissioner into the office. Though Tim was the one running the company nowadays, the elder Wayne still had offices in the building and continued to take an active role in philanthropic work. This place was where most of his small meeting took places—scheduled meetings at least.

“Mr. Wayne I am afraid I have some significant news for you,” she said. She looked around the room, noticing the little girl seated by the large window playing on a tablet.

Bruce noticed as well. “Isabel, would you join your brother downstairs?”

The girl looked, bright blue eyes shining and her identifying white streak in her hair glistening the sun. She nodded before grabbing her tablet and toys and making her way towards the elevator where the receptionist waited. The door closed shut behind her, leaving the commissioner and the old man in the office alone.

“Now, Commissioner Sawyer, I feel we are free to discuss what message you have for me. Before you begin, I must tell you that I will call my lawyer and I have kept all of my records in perfect order. If there is any inclination of any misdoing, I assure you I— “

The Commissioner stopped him. “Mister Wayne, I am sure everything is well with your company. I am thankful for the donations made in your name to the Police department. However, I here to discuss another topic. Your son, Richard Grayson.”

Bruce leaned back in his chair, feeling his heart drop to his stomach. He should have suspected, with all the reports the news had been ignited over. A dread came over him. He turned stoic, his voice soft.

“It is about Hartfield beach, isn’t it? Where they discovered all those bodies?” His voice was almost small, not imposing as usual but instead the sound of a worn old man.

The Commissioner straightened in her chair. “From January 2nd onwards we have, as you know, discovered over thirty victims who we believe are the work of a serial killer. We have been testing the remains for DNA and are running all samples against our databases. Through DNA provided by Lucas Grayson, we have positively identified the remains of your son.”

Bruce Wayne sat back in his chair. He did not speak. His expression did not move. He did not make a sound. He had known for a very long time, he supposed. For some reason, however, he had waited. He had waited for over two decades for someone to tell him.

Bruce was quiet for a while. The Commissioner moved to speak, but he held a hand up to her.

“Please, just tell me how.”

The Commissioner looked own. “We cannot say for sure, but the coroner found massive amounts of blunt force drama on the bones. I am sorry Mister Wayne.”  

The old man leaned back in his chair. He presses his hand to his face. Slowly he released the air in a long-winded sigh. “Is that all you have to say to me now?”

The Commissioner shook her head. “Well, my office will in time contact you to transfer possession of the remains to your family. I know this must be difficult for you Master Wayne and I wanted to express—”

Bruce slammed the desk.

“Commissioner Sawyer do you have anything else to say to beside offering your condolences? Because a hell of a lot of those have been offered to me over the years and I’m pretty sick and tired of it.”

The older women closed her mouth mid-sentence and got up from her chair. She finished with a short and curt: “My office will be contacting you shortly when we release the remains,” before standing up straight. She straightened her clothes and made her way to the door, into the elevator and out of sight.

Bruce had imagined this day. He’d had nightmares about it. He had expected sadness, but all he felt was…empty.

He sat leaning back in his office chair a while, looking out at the view of Gotham City from the window. He had lost a lot to this city, and it had seemed after so many years it had just taken away what the city had always dangled in his face—the possibility that his son was alive.

He was startled out of his thoughts when Isabel appeared in the doorway.

“Zayde, Dada wants to talk to you.”

Bruce looks at the young. She swung on the doorway, her long curly hair twirling back and forth.

“Why did he send you up here?” Bruce asked.

Isabel giggled. “I was messing with too much stuff in the armory. He said I should just bother you instead.”

Bruce tried to smile, but the feeling that had crept up in him made it seem lopsided and fake. Isabel and noticed her face looked confused. She had become too good at reading people.

“Zayde, did that lady tell you something bad. Did you get in trouble?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, I was just told some sad news.”

The girl tilted her head, kicked one of her feet. “About who?”

Bruce looked at her in the doorway, the girl twirling her hair. He beckoned her closer, and he came around his desk and sat on the spare space he made of his office chair. She looked at the laptop with his screensaver of the family photos Bruce made everyone take at Hanukkah last year. Bruce thought it was a lovely photo, despite Damian’s scowl and Tim’s look of utter embarrassment. All the children were present, all dressed nicely and hair neat for once in their lives.

On the side of the desk, sitting in an old picture frame, was an older photograph. It was a photo from many years ago, depicting Bruce as a young man with his two sons, Jason and Dick, posing for a picture at the beach.

“Zayde?” the girl asked. “What’s wrong?”

Bruce sighed. “You know how Lucas’s dad died many years ago?”

Isabel shook her head. “He disappeared,” she said firmly.

Bruce looked at her softly. “Well, that is what Commissioner Sawyer came to tell me. They have proof, Isabel, that he died.”

Isabel looked at her shoes. “Is that why you are sad, Zayde?”

Bruce nodded his head. “I feel very empty right now Isabel.”

Isabel put her hand on his chest. “Does your heart hurt? I heard that it hurts when you get very sad.”

Bruce put his hand over hers. “Yes Isabel, my heart hurts a lot right now.”

He did not expect her to feel the emptiness or sadness that accompanied death. Dick had disappeared over two decades ago, long before Isabel had been born. To her, he was only a man in pictures or old home videos. She had never known him.

Yet, Bruce knew, her ability to experience empathy was so much more sensitive than most. Though she was not sad, she felt _something_ it appeared because her face had become downcast.

“Does Dada know?” she asked quietly.

Bruce removed his hand. “No, he doesn’t Isabel.”

She looked at the picture next to the computer. “Should I tell him?”

Bruce shook his head. “No. I am going to gather everyone in the cave later and tell him when they report in.” He sighed. “You must keep this a secret.”

“Oh,” she said. “You will have to call everyone then.”

Bruce nodded. “yeah, I will.”

Isabel reached for the picture frame, but her arm was too short. Bruce grabbed it and handed it to her. She took it in both hands, staring the familiar face of a man she had never met.

“He won’t come back like Dada, right?” she asked.

She was still so innocent.

“No Isabel,” Bruce said. “He won’t.”

Isabel looked down at the picture. She was almost nine years old, nearly the same age Dick was when he first came to Wayne Manor. Bruce could practically see him vividly, a ghost of a boy who had just seen his parents murdered looking wide-eyed at the expansive building that would become his home. That little boy would grow up into a fine young man, bright blue eyes with dark hair and skin. The young man he had adopted would go away, be ready to start college, to begin his adult life when one night he would just disappear.

Slowly the emptiness drained out of Bruce and was replaced by the thick dark pit of sadness he could remain after every death he had experienced. He rested his face in his hand and looked at Isabel holding the photo, the photo of his dead son. He was no longer missing. He was dead. This death was final.

“Excuse I need to make a phone call.”

* * *

 

“Hello, Mr. Wayne.”

The woman approached Mr. Wayne in the Batcave. Her footsteps were silent on the floor of the cave. She wore the suit of a Talon, daggers in her hands and the trademark owl mask adorning her face.

“This conversation needs to be face to face.” Bruce waved her down. The woman stopped for a moment, then pulled the mask off her face. A tanned skin woman with thick brown hair appeared. Veins were visible on her face, remnants of the Talon formula she was subjected to. Bright blue eyes so hauntingly familiar seemed to glow in the dark of the cave, eyeing the old man with intensity.

“Here I am,” she said in a smooth voice.

Bruce grunted. “Hello, Mary.”

She blinked. “You called me here for what?”

Bruce leaned on his cane. “I received significant news that I needed to discuss with you before I tell the rest of family.”

She looked at him warily. Ever since Jason had brought back her corpse to the cave after a raid on a previously unknown Court of Owls Talon facility, Bruce had looked at her in almost disbelief every time he saw. He had seen her before she died, had known she had in fact perished, yet the Talon serum had reanimated her body. They had contained her in a cell built into the Batcave until they were able to wean her off the serum. When she had become sane and lucid, she had screamed hysterically for her son. Oh, where was her son now?

In time they introduced a world she had become removed from and, in more time, they had informed her of the disappearance of her son. She then resented Bruce, but she had no one else in this world. Despite things settling between them in the past years she never seemed to fully accept Bruce’s friendliness towards her. Bruce knew that in her eyes she saw the man that had lost her son. Now she was Talon, a heroine of her own. It seemed so odd, yet it seemed everyone associated with the Batfamily became a hero sooner or later.

“What do you need to share with me?” she asked. “Is it about Lucas?”

Her grandson, the son Dick never knew about. A month after Dick disappeared Barbara had been shot by the Joker. At the hospital, as they had tried to save her life, they had discovered the undetected fetus inside her. Despite being shot so severely and in the abdomen, the doctors had managed to save not only Barbara’s life, but the baby’s as well. The whole situation was not without it’s up and downs. Lucas was born extremely premature, stayed in the hospital for two months, yet in the end, he was now a healthy young man in college wearing his father’s symbol at night. Mary had been introduced to his life when he was only ten years old, nearly the same age she had last seen Dick. It seemed to help her cope, especially since he had looked a lot like Dick from the start. She was fiercely protective of him and helped Barbara a lot with the boy as he grew up.

It was his DNA that had positively identified the body.

Bruce let out a long breath. “It’s about Dick.”

Mary tilted her head, interested.

“They found his body.”

Mary looked at him blankly. She shook her head and stepped away from her. “You are lying, Bruce Wayne.”

Bruce hobbled forward to reach out to her. He took her slender hand and put his own over it. “Mary I am not lying. They gave his body back to me. I ran my own tests, against your DNA and Lucas’s. It’s him, Mary. It’s Dick.”

She shook her head, but it seemed something in her recognized the sincerity in his voice. She sank to her knees, and he did so along with her. She did not cry, she looked too stunned to cry.

“You are lying to me, Bruce Wayne,” she repeated. “You are lying to me, and I will not believe you.” Her English was becoming thick, accented, as it only did when she became emotional.

“Mary,” Bruce whispered. “It is true.”

They stayed there on the floor for a very long time before Mary began a cry. It was a loud sob, a lament-filled cry for the son she now knew was lost to her.

“Where?” she said.

Bruce bowed his head. “They found him at Hartfield Beach, buried with all the other bodies. It was a serial killer, Mary.”

She shook her head. “No,” she moaned. “No, you trained him. That could not have happened to him. You trained him. You were Batman.”

And yet he is dead.

Bruce lifted her to her feet. “But Mary,” he said again softly. “It’s him.”

Bruce did not have the energy to go up the stairs, and it did not seem that Mary had the will to. The elevator was filled with the sounds of Mary’s muffled sobs. They reached a lower level of the Batcave where Bruce kept his own personal lab. He led her to corner out of the view where a metal table stood. On it lay a skeleton, brown and with a few pieces of hair still connected to it. On the skull was a large jagged hole and fragments broken from it.

“He was dressed when they found him, but the clothes had mostly wasted away,” Bruce said. “He was only buried in a tarp, so there was no flesh left. Decomposition was accelerated. The coroner said that it was probably blunt force trauma.”

Mary approached the body softly, hands kept to her mouth. She tried to reach out to the body but could not touch it.

“ _My son_ ,” she whispered. “ _My son._ ”

May whirled around to face him angrily. “No don’t do that. _Don’t_ ”.

Bruce stepped back. “What? Do what?”

Mary looked at the remains of her son again, crying softly now. “Don’t say his name. His spirit will be confused and might return. You have said his name too much. Don’t say his name.”

She quietly looked at the body and began to murmur in the language of her people to the body.

Bruce didn’t know how to respond. Up in him, the sadness rose up like a fist, grabbing his heart and twisting. He felt anger he felt pain. He was going to find who did this. He had been returned his son, now he will find the one who killed him. All the sadness and anger welled up within. A familiar feeling, a familiar motivation.

Mary began to whispered softly in Romany, “ _Miro yeckoro chavo_ ,” she repeated. “ _Miro yeckoro chavo.”_

My only son

 

 


	2. Identifying Characteristic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The murderer has a type.

They weren’t splitting up. They were just taking a break, okay?

It seemed like Wally had to explain that more and more often these days. That was the reason Artemis had the house, and he was crashing at one of his equipment stockpiles around Central City for the time being. Bum by day and hero by night, until the term resumed in a day or two from winter break, so he could continue his lectures at the local university.

He was halfway through a bag of cheese wheezies when he heard his phone’s ringtone. He set down the bag and picked up the cell phone, seeing Roy’s contact picture appear on the screen.

“Hey, Roy.”

_“Wally.”_

Roy’s voice didn’t sound high or drugged or in any life-or-death distress that he could discern through the line. Wally picked up his bag and leaned against the fridge.

“Yeah, it’s me. If you need bail, I’m telling you to call Jason. I’m pretty much broke at this point—”

“ _Has he told you anything?”_

Wally ate another chip. “Jason? No, we don’t talk that much outside League business. Why?”

_“You heard the news about Gotham?”_

Another chip. “Yeah. Serial killer burial ground. The people that I’ve talked to with friends in Gotham forensics department said it goes back decades. Nasty stuff huh? Jason’s got his hands full.”

_“You haven’t heard who was found there?”_

Wally paused. “No, or at least have the police released any names last I heard.”

_“No, Jason told me. They’re telling the families of identified victims now before they tell the press. They found Dick there.”_

Wally paused. He couldn’t have heard that right. Surely his ears were playing tricks on him.

_“Wally? Wally, I’m not lying, Jason isn’t either.”_

Damn him.

“You’re sure? I mean, they’re sure. Absolutely sure? Dick was trained by the original _Batman_. I don’t mean to say anything mean about the situation, but just a _simple_ serial killer killed him? It sounds fishy.”

_“Wally, it’s him. They found him, Bruce ran his own tests. It’s Dick. After all this time searching they weren’t the ones who found him. It’s him, Wally.”_

The Speedster shook his head. No, that didn’t sound right. A serial killer murdered Dick? He hadn’t been there then but…

He’d been trapped in the Speedforce a year. That year was a blur of white light, distorted voices, and the fear that he would stuck there forever. Then one day it all just stopped, and he was in the Watchtower infirmary with Bart and Barry who had managed to pull him out of his prison. He had seen everyone, fallen back into Artemis’s crying arms, but Dick wasn’t there. Dick never appeared.

They had told him what happened. After Wally had been sucked into the Speedforce Dick had stopped speaking to Bruce after another one of their massive fights, but he still had checked in with Tim from time to time, inviting him to his apartment as well. One day when Tim arrived at his home after being unable to reach Dick, he found the apartment undisturbed. After hours of searching, it seemed the situation was dire enough that the Batfamily noticed the police that Richard Grayson was missing. Security cameras pieced together the last part of his final day. He went grocery shopping, bought a book for Alfred, went out to eat, and began a night out on the town. Elaine’s Deli on Yarboro and Kenton had the last ever footage of him walking down the street and then out of the sight of the camera. Dick was never seen again, neither by camera nor person.

Wally had heard the rumors. Some said he was kidnaped, some thought he had committed suicide after spending too long in the spotlight as the ward of Bruce Wayne. Others thought he was alive somewhere with amnesia and a disfigured face from an accident, others thought he had been murdered.

It seemed that the latter was right.

Yet it still sounded too good to be true. Twenty years of his best friend missing and now his body just appears along seemingly ordinary people?

“ _Wally?_ ”

His thoughts were broken. “Yes, yes I’m here.”

_“Are you okay?_ ”

No.

“Yeah, yeah. I just need some time. Okay?”

“ _Oh. I’m here to talk to if you need me.”_

“Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

He clicked off the call.

* * *

 

Wally makes it precisely five minutes inside the Gotham city limit before he gets caught by a bat.

Coincidently, it’s Jason in the Batman costume with a well-placed smack to his face at superspeed that sends him skidding down a city street. When he manages to get up all he sees is the universal bat-face of disapproval.

_“What are you doing here?”_

It sounds odd because Jason doesn’t usually speak while he is out as Batman. He was never able to truly grasp the Bat’s voice or Bruce’s demeanor. Makes sense, he hadn’t been planning on becoming Batman. That had always been expected of Dick.

“Red Arrow called me. Told me the news.”

As if it wasn’t possible already Jason made the flat line of his mouth even flatter. He nodded his head toward the backstreets. _“Follow me.”_

Six backstreet turns later at a painstakingly slow speed, and after a traverse through a maze of slums, Wally found himself at one of the many safehouses scattered across the city. As the door closed securely shut with a hiss, Jason pulled off his cowl and Wally took the cue to do the same. Jason’s unnatural green eyes—Wally had heard the Lazarus pits did that to him—bore into his head almost like bullets.

“So, you know.”

Wally nodded his head. “Roy told me.”

Jason let out a long-winded sigh. “I can’t tell him shit.”

“Well,” Wally responded, “He only told me because I was his friend and all. He felt that he needed to break the news to me.”

Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wasn’t even supposed to tell anyone. We have to make arrangements and a bunch of other things, so Brue didn’t want to release the news yet. We really wanted to get it over with before the press found out…” he trailed off and leaned against the wall with a soft thud that was muffled by the suit. “You know he’s actually dead Wally.”

Wally nodded solemnly. “I almost can’t believe it.

“I mean,” Jason added, “I always knew he was dead. I didn’t believe all the bullshit Bruce believed that Dick would come home eventually. After the months went by I knew he was probably either burned up or buried somewhere at the bottom of some grave. I knew Talia and Ra didn’t have him, so he was probably, actually dead. And look,” he waved his hands around, “I was right. Bruce didn’t appreciate the ‘I told you so’ and kicked me out of the house for the day for being ‘disrespectful’ like I’m a fucking child. I found you running through our city by chance.”

Wally stepped uncomfortably. “Well, saying that was a little uncalled for.”

Jason scoffed. “He’s said worse. He wasn’t talking to Dick when he died. He had kicked him out, and they’d had a nasty argument, according to Tim. Bruce said a lot of things he shouldn’t have said, and Tim said it literally visible hurt Dick.” He huffed. “My last meeting with him wasn’t so nice either. I shot him.”

Wally nodded. “I know. I heard from Barbara.”

Apparently, it had been Dick’s first meeting with Jason since the Lazarus Pit. Dick had tried to talk him down and get him to come home to him and Bruce, but Jason had just pulled the trigger and fired at him at point-blank range. Granted, Jason had shot to wound, not to kill. Still, Barbara had told him about she had been frantically patching Dick up as he bled on her kitchen floor repeating over and over that Jason was alive.

“It seems like everyone has heard that story,” Jason murmured. He flicked his glove. There was an uncomfortable silence for a while.

“Where is he?” Wally asked. “Are you sure it’s him?”

Jason looked at him. “The skeleton is currently lying on a metal table at the back of Bruce’s lab. It’s him, Brue ran his own test. The body is causing problems. There was a big fight this morning between Mary and Bruce over where Dick is going to be buried. Mary wants him buried by her dead husband, but Bruce wants him buried next to my grave with the rest of his family because _technically_ on paper Dick was Wayne with a hyphenated last name and all. The fight was ugly. Knives were thrown. People took a walk.”

Wally sighed. He’d met Mary sparingly. She wasn’t anything like warm, loving mother Dick had described to him from memory. She was more like an angry undead assassin with knife collection. Though, one time she had made him cookies when he had been stuck in the Batcave after chasing a supervillain to the outskirts of Gotham. The villain had been detained, but Wally had broken his legs in the process. His super healing had kicked in too soon, and his bones began fusing extremely wrong which preventing him from running off. He’d been ungracefully carried into the Batcave by Jason and had his legs broken again. Twice.

“What happened to him?” Wally asked.

“Blunt force trauma, most likely. Basically, his skull is in multiple pieces. The coroner says it was probably a horrible death by comparing it to the death of the bodies that they could identify a cause of death in. They can’t actually tell for sure with Dick, he’s just a skeleton at this point. The killer drew it out. There haven’t been any mercy killings.” He said it so flatly Wally could almost have imagined it as simple news.

“Pieces…” Wally murmured.

Jason nodded. “If they had to make a guess, considering the rest of the victims, all trauma occurred before death.” Jason seemed to reach for a non-existent cigarette pack before dropping his hands. “Worse could have happened. Some have signs of sexual assault, both male and female. Victims are of all ages. Most of the children were buried with their mothers. There’s no single race, no single profession, no single quality that unites these victims, except one.”

Wally tilted his head. “What’s that?”

Jason looked him dead in the eyes. “They all carried the metagene.”

Wally’s eyes widened, but Jason only nodded his head to affirm his disbelief.

“We discovered that as they DNA profiled all the victims. None of the victims had two copies, they were only carriers for single copies.” Jason let out a sigh. “We didn’t even know Dick was a carrier until a couple years ago. Technology couldn’t tell us that when he disappeared. That technology didn’t _exist_ yet. We didn’t find out until we took Lucas’s DNA, and that’s when we found out about the discrepancy.”

Wally tilted his head.

“Before we found Mary, we offered Lucas’s DNA to go into the database, so Dick could be identified by authorities using familial DNA if any lone Police Department found his remains who knows where in America. What we call “the discrepancy” is that Lucas’s copy of the metagene, passed from Dick, is mutated. It seems like it’s not all there like it’s missing some parts, or it’s mutated to look decompressed somehow. It’s barely detectable, and we only found it because of Bruce running through Lucas’s code over and over.” Jason sighed. “And that’s why we’re worried, because if the killer Dick because of that—”

“The killer can detect metagenes even if they are mutated and barely detectable,” Wally finished. “And the whole time the killer was doing this when technology hadn’t been advanced enough to detect metagenes.”

Jason nodded. “The killings predated any metagene detection technology by ten years. We think the killer can detect the metagene without technology at all. Only .5% of the entire human population carries a single copy of the metagene, how the hell could this killer so easily identify these carriers without any technology having been invented? Hell, science didn’t even know the metagene actually existed until the Reach came to Earth and proved our theories on why you are _you_. It wasn’t like the killer just created this technology and sat on their ass for a decade until people finally learned about it.”

“So,” Wally said, “the killer probably has an activated metagene that can at least detect carriers of the metagene.” Wally opened his eyes in realization. “They might be able to recognize those who have activated copies of the metagene.”

Jason nodded. “This leaves some members of the league open to having their identities compromised. Who is to say that this killer doesn’t have a separate burial ground for those with activated copies or who were carriers of two copies with a high chance of activation? Dick’s body was buried slightly away from the other bodies and was found near another body that predates his death by at least four years. This unidentified individual also carried a single copy of the metagene, but it was also mutated, not in the same way as Dick’s, but mutated nonetheless. How can the killer detect so easily the differences? The specificity of the burial clearly shows he can recognize the differences.”

Wally put his head in his hands. “So, Dick was targeted because he unknowingly was a carrier of the metagene and our killer can most likely detect these genes due to having an activated gene themselves that allows them to identify these individuals. Holy _shit_.” Wally looked up at Jason, thinking. “Lucas carries the mutated copy of the metagene.”

Jason nodded. “Exactly. I’m only telling you because you’re here and I know you’re with us on this.”

“With you on what?”

“Finding the killer.” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose. “If the killer could detect Dick’s mutated gene _and_ managed to murder a man trained by _Batman_ who’s to say this killer won’t target your children and succeed? THey’ve identified victims from Central City. Iris has two copies, but we know that …

“Jai only has one.” Wally lowered his head. “Jai only has one copy,” he repeated

Jason nodded. “This isn’t just some serial killer. He’s targeting. He can probably find people like you.”

This was going to be a lot harder than a simple murder.

“ _Who else_?” Wally asked.

“What do you mean?” Jason responded.

“Who else is going to be working the case with us?”


	3. Burial Arrangements

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is at odds with Mary over where Dick should be buried and seeks an outside opinion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this got super long and I realized the chapters felt like two separate ones so I split it. This chapter is short but the next is far longer. Stay tuned.

June 5th, 2038.

Bruce found Mary outside his Wayne Tower office window.

She was dressed in full Talon regalia with the mask covering her face glinting in the city’s lights. Bruce did not skip a beat as he noticed her and merely opened the window allowing her to enter the building without breaking the lock.

“You’ve been missing for two days,” he said as he watched her as she stood up from her jump. She didn’t seem too tired, so Bruce assumed she had planned her entrance instead of just hanging on the window for hours. It was late at night, so barely anyone could have noticed her from so high a distance.

“I had business to take care of.” Her tone was flat. She pulled off her Talon mask and let her long brown hair fall down her back. “I wanted to come to an agreement over the burial of _my_ son.”

Bruce tried not to get rustled at her use of possessive nouns. “He was my son as well, Mary. I raised him too.”

She narrowed her eyes. “But last I checked you didn’t give birth to him.” She crossed her arms and adjusted her feet. Her body language was tense, and Bruce half expected her to launch herself at him. She didn’t, but she stayed locked in that position. Her eyes seemed to glow in the darkness.

“I am burying him,” Bruce began, “with the rest of the Wayne’s.”

Mary scoffed. “He was not a Wayne.”

Bruce grunted. “The legal papers and I beg to differ. I adopted him, and he became a member of my family in the eyes of his law. He used my last name along with yours. I buried Jason with the Wayne’s I would like his older brother to be buried there too.”

“What reason is there for him not to be buried with my husband?”

“ _I_ want him buried with the Wayne’s, and in case you haven’t noticed I am the one making the legal decision here.”

Mary shook her head and sighed. “You just want all of your failures close to you, to remind you of what you lost. You’re possessive.”

“So are you.”

“He was mine before he was yours, Bruce. Remember that.”

This made Bruce go quiet for a while. Yes, he knew that all too well at this point.

“You’ve been talking with Jason.”

“Sparingly,” she said. “I watch Isabel for him when he goes off world or when he goes out with that Harper boy. Now I watch her because the two of them are with Wallace.”

Bruce grunted. “They are going to find Dick’s killer.”

“Don’t say his name _!”_

Mary’s outburst nearly made Bruce jump. He looked at her where she stood, and there was an expression of almost pure anger on her face.

“My people do not say the names of the dead. His soul will be trapped here. We’ve said his name too much. Don’t say it again.”

Bruce was aware of no such thing but judging the way Mary held herself like she was about to burst Bruce thought it had to be true.

“He’s gone, Mary,” Bruce said. “He’s been gone for a long, long time.”

“I always knew that, and I suppose you did too.” She straightened up to glare at him that sent the feeling of an impending rain down through Bruce’s bones. She barely blinked, there being so much sadness in her eyes. “But as you and I can see we both never admitted that fact to ourselves.”

* * *

June 6th, 2038

“What do you think I should do?”

Bruce sat at breakfast with Damian across from him. His youngest son, jetlagged and tired from his flight to Paris barely showed it as he sat down to eat at the table. He hadn’t been talking to Damian much since he had passed over him and given the mantle of Batman to Jason, albeit temporarily, which had sent Damian into a rage and his own self-imposed exile.

“What do you mean, Father?” the other man questioned.

“Richard’s burial,” Bruce said. “Mary is angry with me.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “That has never bothered you before.”

Bruce shook his head. “But this concerns your brother.”

Damian shrugged. “I was an infant when he died. I never knew the man. I feel I should share no opinions on this matter as I am biased. I have a profound respect for Mary and her abilities.”

Bruce looked at him. “What did Talia tell you about him?”

Damian took a sip of tea, not coffee. Never coffee. “My mother said that he had been your heir, but he was weak and died as the weak should. Grandfather said much the same, though he contemplated finding his remains and resurrecting him the same way he did Todd. He did not go through with the plan or any like it.”

Bruce nodded. “Thank you for coming here.” He looked at son approvingly. “I know you never knew him and have no reason to be here because of his death.”

“I have a reason,” Damian clarified. “Those remains and I family, legally speaking.” He took another sip. “And I have not seen my father in a long time.”

Bruce almost smiled. Although Damian was harsh and brash, it usually covered what he wanted to say with being so open with another person.

“How are things in Paris?” Bruce asked.

“Fine,” Damian answered. “I work with the League occasionally. They almost seem surprised they have a Bat working with them again since you cut Gotham off from the rest of the world and quit their ranks after Grayson’s death.” He took a bite of his toast, though it wasn’t exactly toasty. Bruce didn’t question the recipes his son had learned on his trips abroad. “Cassandra came to visit me from Hong Kong a couple weeks ago.”

“How is your sister?” Bruce asked.

“She is fine. She is not going to be coming to the funeral, whenever you decide the event is going to held.”

“I don’t blame her,” Bruce said. “She has the least amount of connection to him, and she needs time on her own.”

Damian looked at him quizzically. “You don’t talk to her?”

Bruce looked at him in return. “Of course, I do.”

Damian blinked. “Then you’re talking with me about her to stall.”

Bruce furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

Damian put down his meal. “You don’t want to talk about Grayson, yet you do. You’re acting totally dissociated to the complete process of grieving because you don’t want to deal with it.”

Bruce grunted. “Did Talia teach you how to read people like that.”

“No,” Damian answered. “You did.” He took yet another sip of tea, finishing off the glass and putting it to the side. “Father you need to deal with the situation.” Damian finished his toast and began to clean up his plates. They were all accustomed to taking care of themselves now, almost a year after Alfred’s death. “I think his grave would be more secure here. I feel like the paparazzi would totally disrespect his grave if he were buried with his father. They’re practically staking out the location as it is now.” He got up to leave, pausing in the doorway. “Though don’t tell Mary I suggested the idea.”

Bruce nodded. Damian almost left before stopping. “ _Tt._ I forgot to mention Todd called for you earlier while you were asleep. He has something to discuss.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yo leave a comment with any suggestions. I know I am a bad writer compared to most others but you only get better with practice.


	4. Keep the Receipts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you should look in the mouth of a gift horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have rewritten this 10 times and it sucks but we move on.

“Meredith Barrow,” Jason said, handing Wally a file. “She went missing December 31st. Her mother and father didn’t hear from her, and she was supposed to attend their New Year’s Eve party but never showed. Both parents were unable to reach her and called the police.”

Jason pulled out the contents of the file in front of Wally and Roy who sat at a table. They were in one of his many safehouses on the outskirts of Gotham. He held up a photo of Meredith, a black girl with a moon face and large dark eyes.

“She was nineteen, a freshman college student studying journalism at Clemson University in South Carolina. She came from a very religious southern evangelical background, and her church was her whole life. She was the only child the couple had alive. There was an older brother, but he was killed in an auto accident at eight years old a couple months before Meredith was born.” Jason sighed. “She has no connections to the Gotham area. Her family lives in South Carolina or further South. Interviews with her friends and family have led authorities to the conclusion that she had no plans to visit the Gotham area and was most likely forcibly brought here.”

Wally looked at the picture of the girl. She was smiling in the photo, her arm on the shoulder of what was most likely her mother who had been cut off from the picture.

“She was last seen the morning of December 30th setting out to visit her parents who lived in Columbia, about two hours away. Of course, she never made it there. Her mother called that night but didn’t get an answer. She reported her daughter missing the next day when she didn’t arrive by the morning.

“The reason we found her body first, or that we found any of the bodies at all was that after she was born her mother, very overprotectively, implanted a GPS tracker in her child. The GPS tracker implant led us to the discovery of the all the bodies at Hartsfield.”

Roy and Wally looked at the information, surprised.

“A subdermal implant?” Roy questioned.

Jason nodded. He frowned as he pulled out the autopsy photos

“At the moment the body was found she had been dead for less than two days. Cause of death was asphyxia, very drawn out. She had been stabbed multiple times and had defensive wounds on her hands. There is evidence of vicious sexual assault.” He put down the folder. “And as you already know, she carried the metagene. A normal copy, if you could call a metagene that.”

Roy looked at all the papers scattered before them. “This implant,” he began, “it’s probably impossible to check where it’s been since it hadn’t been activated before authorities tracked her?”

Jason nodded. “Correct. It was activated after death. The signal never changed from her burial ground.”

Wally watched as he pulled out a map of the United States, covered in red dots. “There are victims from practically every region of the continental US. There is no set profile. Victims are of every race, sex, and background. Ages range from two months to the eighties. The only common characteristic is the metagene.”

“What do we have to go off of?” Roy asked. “You're telling us about her first, so obviously she has a clue on her.”

“Meredith was discovered with her killer’s hair in her mouth.”

Wally raised his eyebrow.

Jason nodded. “She knew what was happening. It seemed like in the struggle she bit her killer and ripped a good chunk of his hair out, and the struggle was so fierce the killer probably didn’t know she ripped it out, or at least couldn’t get it all out of her mouth. Lab tests say male DNA, but there is no match for it in any system. Our killer is clean of any criminal record.”

“We have his DNA, and that’s it?” Wally asked.

“I didn’t finish,” Jason responded. “That was not the only clue in her mouth.”

The other two men looked at him confused.

“She swallowed it,” Jason explained, “it wasn’t found by the coroner, but we Bats have our ways.”

“Well, what was it?” Wally asked.

“A tag. For a suit, from a small business in Metropolis.”

* * *

Wally hadn’t been to Metropolis in a long time.

He had mostly just run through it. Connor no longer lived in the city. Instead, he had a more involved role as part of the mentors of the covert Team. Wally had only been to Metropolis recently to find Iris after she had sneaked off with Kara to go to some concert.

But here he was, inside the roof of a tailor in Metropolis trying to creep through the ceiling of the old building. He had removed one of the squares from the ceiling and was watching Roy on the floor below.

Roy was currently rifling through papers. The suit maker was an old man of nearly ninety. He was short, with round glasses and enough grandchildren at home to fill a school bus. He was old fashioned and had no online databases of customers. Instead, he recorded their names on paper in a giant filing room filled with cabinets.

“At least all this shit is well organized,” Roy said, rifling through a cabinet. “Or we would be sneaking in here for days. We might still be if I can’t find the fucking receipt.”

Wally scoffed. “How hard is it for you to find a number?”

“These aren’t in English,” Roy responded.

“Numbers don’t have a language, Roy.”

“These do,” Roy said. “The man has his own system in his hand.”

Wally sighed. He checked the doors and continued the conversation. “Why did Jason cancel last minute?”

Roy opened another file. “Isabel had something at her school. Jason doesn’t attend much of her after-school activities, but he’s attending this one because I have been to most of them.”

Wally tilted his head as he resumed his lookout. “Wow. Didn’t know you were that close with Isabel.”

Roy stopped for a moment then resumed his search. “Um...yeah.”

“How’s Lian?” Wally asked.

“Good. She’ll graduate with her bachelor’s this semester.”

“Oh,” Wally said. “Seems like just yesterday Artemis was watching her break out of her playpen.”

Roy laughed. “Your wife was very liberal with her.” He stopped for a second, realizing.

“Wally, I didn’t mean—”

“We’re still married,” Wally answered. “We’re just taking a break.”

Roy resumed his duties. “Oh,” he says, “Just the way Jade made it out to me…never mind. “

Wally shook his head. “it’s fine, it’s fine. We’re just sorting some stuff out between us.” He paused and watched as a pigeon flew from the rafters and out of the building. “Speaking of our love lives how’s yours?”

“Jade and I have been done for years, Wally. We just chat now and then. How can you—”

“Just asking.”

Roy pulled out the folder he wanted and shut the cabinet. “Found it. Let’s go.”

Roy pulled himself up onto the roof. They closed the ceiling and made their way up to the top of the roof, the faint glow of city lights around them.

“Hey, remind me why you weren’t going through the files? With your super speed, I think we would have been done at least a couple hours—”

_“Might I ask why you are in my city?”_

Wally and Roy jumped as the booming voice sounded around them.

“ _Clark_!” Roy greeted. ” Long time no see.”

Superman hovered above them, like one huge, fat, blue and red angel blocking out the moon. Wally nodded his head in greeting. Years had barely aged the Kryptonian, save for a few grey hairs on his head.

“ _Red Arrow_ ,” Clark corrected. Ah yes, no names in the field. “ _Flash_. My question still stands.”

“Just following up on some leads for a murder case,” Roy responded before Wally could answer. “Surely you wouldn’t stand in the way of justice.”

Clark touched down on the roof and crossed his arms. “Your definition of _justice_ , Red Arrow, is far different from mine. I have heard of your past troubles.”

Roy’s false smile wavered for just a second. Wally remembered that horrible phase of Roy’s life all too well.

“A man can’t catch a break? The whole _my city_ thing seems every out of character. Have you been talking to Bat 1.0 lately?”

Clark ignored him and turned to Wally. “I am surprised you are hanging around with the likes of him.”

Wally put his hands behind his back. “Well, I have a personal stake in this, Superman.”

Clark looked at him confused. “What murder are you investigating that you _both_ would have a stake in?”

Roy’s grin left his face. “Surely you’ve heard the news by now?”

Clark's eyes blinked. “Well, I had heard the rumors from our community. I was not told if they were true. My condolences.”

“Don’t say it to us,” Wally replied. “Tell his family.” He stopped. “Second thought don’t do that. They’re kind of pissed at the moment. If you would excuse us—”

Clark paused for a moment. “You won’t be needing help?”

Wally shook his head. “It’s a personal matter. We’d prefer to keep it amongst ourselves.”

Clark nodded in understanding. “Fine then. Hopefully, you won’t be absent at the next League meeting as you were at the last.” With a soft thud, he was gone, up through the clouds and beyond their sight.

Red Arrow blinked, looking up in the sky. “Why did you miss the last meeting?”

“Couples therapy.”

“Oh.”

Wally grunted. “Are you ready to go very, very fast?”

“What do you me—”

In one motion Wally had grabbed Roy arm and had thrown him on his back.

“What the hell—”

“Hold on.”

In a flash, they both were gone.

* * *

“I feel like my stomach is in my esophagus,” Roy said with an effort, leaning on a chair.

“You’re not used to it,” Wally said. “But it’s not that far a distance I wonder why you’re so nauseous.”

“I don’t go light speed.”

“I wasn’t going light speed.”

“Oh shit, I think I’m going to vomit.”

Wally took the file as Roy ran to the bathroom of the safehouse. He opened it, trying not to focus on the noise.

“Careful,” Wally called out taking out the records. The color matched, deep blue from the same manufacturer. Another hurl interrupted his thoughts. “When are you going to tell Jason he’s going to be a father again?”

A weak _“fuck you”_ came from the bathroom before it became hushed again. Wally chuckled and took out the records for every suit sold of that material. The list was moderately long but went back decades. What an organized man.

“There are over three hundred people on this list,” Wally called out. “Does the receipt say anything else?”

_“I don’t fucking know man.”_

Wally grunted and looked at the list. At least their list had gone down from half the human population to three hundred people. That is if the suit hadn’t been sold, donated, bartered, destroyed—

Well damn.

Roy came out of the bathroom wiping his mouth on a bath towel and then throwing it off to the laundry.

“Well it _is_ four am,” Roy said, “We can start tomorrow with Jason.” Roy took the file in his hand. “And don’t you have work tomorrow?”

Wally sighed. “Your right.” He wiped his face in his hands. “Just tell Jason to call me when we meet next.”

“I’ll tell him.”

 

* * *

It is four am.

The file has been delivered to Jason. The man has just fallen asleep, and Isabel is sleeping in another room like she has been for hours. The penthouse is quiet.

A foot steps through the window that has been broken into. The security system has been disabled. The footsteps are silent.

Hurriedly gloved hands grab the file, scanning all its contents quickly with a wrist computer. In moments everything is over with. The file is placed back on the table as if it had never been touched.

The window is sealed shut once again, the system is reactivated, the footsteps are gone.

Talon disappears into the night.


End file.
